(OPINION) American media are forever fascinated — or frightened — regarding what teens and young adults are up to, especially in matters linked to morality and religion.

My Oct. 24 Memo highlighted an important new survey showing, for instance, that only half of “mainline” Protestant young adults still uphold the very basic belief that God is “a personal being involved in the lives of people today,” which is affirmed by virtually all evangelicals.

Now comes a comprehensive survey of 5,600 U.S. teens who were tracked from 1999 into young adulthood.

The topline: Those who were raised to attend worship (of whatever faith) on a weekly basis, and to pray or meditate daily, show notably favorable life outcomes compared with others.

This is highly newsworthy. But, as often the case with academic research, it will be brand new info for most or all journalists, though reported a year ago in the American Journal of Epidemiology. The authors are Professor Tyler VanderWeele (tvanderw@hsph.harvard.edu or 617–955-6292) and doctoral student Ying Chen of Harvard University’s School of Public Health. The project was supported by the federal National Institutes of Health and the Templeton Foundation.

The investigators found that in comparison with non-attenders, later outcomes for young adults who worshipped weekly as teens showed greater satisfaction in life, volunteering, sense of personal mission and forgiveness, a lower probability of drug abuse, early sexual initiation and sexual infections, fewer lifetime sexual partners, possibly less depression and higher rates of voter registration, etc.

The cautiously worded conclusion: Results “suggest that religious involvement in adolescence may be one such protective factor for a range of health and well-being outcomes. … Encouraging service attendance and private practices may be meaningful avenues of development and support, possibly leading to better health and well-being.”

In the past, most studies of this sort have examined the favorable impact of religious involvement with adults rather than teens and young adults, and the effects on physical health, not mental or psychological well-being emphasized in the new study. (The article’s 48 footnotes cite such past research.)

So striking were the results that the headline on a (paywalled) Wall Street Journal religion analysis about this by Jewish psychoanalyst Erica Komisar said “Don’t Believe in God? Lie to Your Children.” Here’s the nub of her point.

Nihilism is fertilizer for anxiety and depression, and being ‘realistic’ is overrated. The belief in God — in a protective and guiding figure to rely on when times are tough — is one of the best kinds of support for kids in an increasingly pessimistic world. That’s only one reason, from a purely mental-health perspective, to pass down a faith tradition.

Thus when parents who are atheists ask Komisar how to talk to their children about God and death “my answer is always the same: Lie.” (!!!)

One seemingly anomalous finding was that frequent prayer or meditation may be associated with more physical health problems. The authors suggest this could be “reverse causation” in which those who already have medical challenges are more likely to pray.

The article notes limitations in the study. To further understand these dynamics, researchers should examine the impact on religious practice from parents’ pressure and peer influence in religious youth groups. And the youths studied were mostly white, and children of mothers who were nurses, so the results “may not be generalizable to other populations.”

This piece first appeared at Get Religion.